The Abominable Amulet

1

Mr. Snow and Miss Case, his assistant, regarded the box that had just been delivered by UPS. He frowned at the plain brown cardboard. He couldn't remember ordering anything. He looked at her with the question in his eyes.

She shook her head. She hadn't ordered anything either.

He looked at the label on the top of the box. He wondered what the Magic Hat could be. He certainly didn't know anyone with an appellation like that in Church Hill.

He picked up a letter opener from his desk and slit the tape on the top of the box. He looked for anything that might indicate that something dangerous was inside the container as he went. He felt paranoid, but he didn't want a live animal, or something worse, jumping out in his face.

He found a smaller box and an envelope. He opened the letter. That would tell him what was in the other box before he pulled off the lid.

'Dear Miss Case,

My uncle spoke to me about your visit. He asked me to send something that wasn't dangerous to your museum. I found this and decided to send it.

Yours truly,

Jack Dragon.'

"Someone's uncle asked him to send something to us." Mr. Snow handed the letter and envelope to his assistant. "I wonder what could be in the other package."

"Jack Dragon is a magician." Miss Case placed the letter on the desk. "I remember reading about a tour he did a few years ago."

"Dr. Long was a magician also." Mr. Snow seized on the coincidence immediately. He wondered what could fit in the smaller box.

"Dr. Long is old enough to have an adult nephew." The assistant had talked to the old man about a hat he had sent to the museum. "He might have asked his nephew to send something if Jack Dragon is his nephew."

"Let's see what's in the box." The curator picked up the rectangle and lifted the lid off. An amethyst glittered from a bed of paper. He picked it up. A gold chain dangled from a loop in the setting around the gem. A small imperfection in the center of the jewel almost looked like a letter to him.

"He sent a clipping with the pendant." Miss Case pulled the paper out of the box. She unfolded it to reveal a small headline and newspaper story. "'Family found dead in home.' I wonder what that has to do with the jewel."

"Probably everything." Mr. Snow put the pendant back in the box before taking the story from his assistant. He scanned the words with his quick eyes. "'The only thing that appeared missing was an amulet made of amethyst.' This is possibly that jewel. How did Dragon get it?"

"Why would he send it to us?" Miss Case looked at the amulet where it lay in the box. "Souvenir of what happened then?"

"He must have taken this from whomever killed the family." Snow went to his chair. "I doubted he killed them himself."

"This could belong to someone." She held the story in her hands. "We might have to contact the next of kin to return this."

"I don't think there is any." He looked up at the ceiling as he leaned back in his chair. "We'll need to do the customary research on this, Miss Case. Please call the police department and start with the story from the paper. That should get things rolling."

"Do I tell them we have the necklace?" She went to her desk.

"No." The curator frowned at a rough patch overhead. "We don't know where this thing came from for sure, or what happened to the original that was with the family that died. Let's concentrate on what we do know, and if we can get pictures."

"Do you think the police know this Jack Dragon?" She turned her computer on.

"I don't know." Mr. Snow stood. "I think this might be one of those cases where no one knows what really happened."

"Like the Shrike?" She typed Church Hill Police Department in a search engine. She wanted to call and find out what she could from the man who investigated the case first. She could branch out from there.

"The Shrike is a prime example." Mr. Snow had an exhibit of a costume of a flying man who had terrorized Mt. Airy with killer birds. He had vanished after several fights with the local hero, the Eagle.

The Eagle didn't offer any explanation where his enemy had gone. He wasn't reported arrested by the local police, or the Bureau.

Speculation in the papers of the time had offered the opinion that the Eagle and Shrike had been related, and the Eagle had done away with his relative.

With no body, there was no proof. The Eagle refused to talk about it when asked by reporters, and investigators.

Mr. Snow turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

Jack Dragon had sent them a story and a piece of jewelry. He knew what had happened to the family. Why send the jewel to a hero museum, and not the police? What made the amulet so important to send to the museum?

He didn't like stories that didn't have objective facts.

"My name is Case." She looked at the story for a clue on who to ask to talk to about the case. "I work for the Hero Museum in Reagan City. I have a piece sent to us with a story connected to an unsolved case. I was wondering if I could talk to someone who worked on it so I can verify the piece."

She gave the family name in the story to the person on the other end of the phone.

"Detective Albert Cole?" She wrote the name down. "Is he in?"

"I'll call back." She hung up the phone. "A Detective Cole was listed on the file. I'll have to call him tomorrow."

"Thank you." Mr. Snow rubbed his face. "What is the next step?"

"I can check the net for anything related to this." Miss Case pulled her pad close. "I can check to see if Cole has a presence."

"Check on Jack Dragon too." Mr. Snow checked his watch. "I'm sure he has some kind of reputation."

"I could call him to confirm he sent the amulet to us." She put Jack Dragon in the search engine. She got back notices leading to a place called the Magic Hat. "That explains the label."

"Oh?" He walked over to look at the screen. The Magic Hat was a magic club where Jack Dragon had a standing date to put on shows for the public.

"Call them." He pointed at the number on the advertisement. "Maybe they can tell us something about the man himself."

Miss Case dialed the number. She decided to talk to the manager. He would know something about the magician. Anything was better than what they had at the moment.

"Hello." She put on her brightest voice. She needed to seem friendly so she could cover her snooping with pleasantness. "Could I talk to the manager?"

She tapped her fingers on the desk after being put on hold. She stopped when someone spoke on the other end.

"My name is Case. I'm calling about Jack Dragon." She paused. "He solves problems? I was calling about what he sent to the Hero Museum in Reagan City. It's a pendant. You know it? You recommended it? What can you tell me about it?"

She started writing notes on the pad as she listened to the story. She put down points that could be authenticated later by calls into the city, and researching newspaper stories if she was asked to go to Church Hill and flesh out the story for the exhibit.

"Thank you for your time." She rubbed her ear as she looked at the pages of notes. "Can I call you again if I need to?"

"Thank you again." She hung up the phone. The phone bill was going to be outrageous this month.

"What did you find out?" Mr. Snow smiled. She had been on the phone for hours. He hoped there was something in all that they could use to verify the facts.

"The amulet was cursed." Miss Case smiled at his expression. "It used to possess the wearer and make that person do horrible things."

"And Jack Dragon stopped that?" Mr. Snow nodded. "Of course, he did. Did he remove the curse?"

"According to the manager of the club, he did." The assistant looked at the box. "The thing was responsible for more deaths besides the family that started everything."

"We'll put it in the back of the building." Snow rubbed his face. "Verify everything you can while I put this in the vault. It'll take me a while to set up a display with the appropriate security."

"Should we follow up with Jack Dragon about this?" She closed the computer screen. Her eyes ached some.

"Let's check the facts that we know before we do that." He picked up the box and closed it on the necklace. "We might need him to fill in things we can't verify ourselves."

2

The amulet gleamed when Sade Verger took it out of the box. She had never expected such a lovely gift. She had only been dating Eric Strauss for a few months.

"Try it on." Eric smiled. "It will look beautiful on you."

She let the amulet drop on her chest as she did the clasp behind her neck. She had to hold her hair out of the way as she worked on the hook. She straightened the chain when she was done.

"It looks beautiful." Sade smiled at him as she admired the surface of it. "Where did you get it?"

"It was in a safety deposit box I closed today." Eric shrugged. "The owner hasn't paid the bill on it, so the bank sent out a notice. Then we shut it down."

"Won't you get in trouble for keeping it?" Sade looked at the streaks running in the surface of amber jewel of the amulet.

"No." Eric smiled. "I paid the cost for it out of pocket. The bank thinks it was sold with the rest of his goods to pay his tab."

"Thank you." She gave him a hug. "I never expected something like this."

"I wanted to give you something special." He held her close. "I can't give you a ring yet, but I will."

"It will be all right, honey." She took his hand. "What else do you have planned tonight?"

"Dinner and a show." Eric smiled. "I remembered you wanted to see the new play at the Reach, so I got tickets for us."

Sade jumped and down like a little kid. She hugged the love of her life. This night was going to be perfect.

She didn't remember everything clearly. The hours they were together passed in a blur. She had prided herself on being critical and watchful for any clue that something was going wrong. She forgot all that as the night flew by in a whirl of color and song.

They arrived back at her apartment at the end of the evening in a cloud of light and fuzzy headedness. She had a hard time putting the key in the lock as they laughed and talked about the evening.

Sade gave Eric a kiss at the door, hugged him and sank on the couch. Tomorrow was a visit to her mother's so this interlude was welcome before she had to deal with the old woman.

Eric helped her with her clothes, placed a small blanket over her, and locked the place up before leaving. He had allowed her to drink too much. He shook his head. He would know better the next time.

Now he still had some things to do before he went to his own home.

The first thing he had to do was head over to the bank's ATM. He had Sade's card in his pocket, and her pin number in his brain. He could draw out enough to cover their date. He would have to give her back the card tomorrow. He had to stop by the old man's place and get rid of his body before someone found it.

Keeping the death concealed as long as possible was the only way he could raid the dead man's accounts and take whatever he needed to finance his new lifestyle. He could even quit the bank and pretend that he had started his own finance company.

First, he had to get rid of the body.

Eric knew he could never tell Sade he had taken the amulet from the dead man's hand. She would dump him, and he would lose access to her money.

He wanted to move in the social circles she did so he could move up in the world. He didn't plan to live in a dump in the middle of town all his life. He wanted to move up in the world. He wanted to buy an island and walk the beach naked anytime he wanted.

He took the train over to where he had left the body. He had stuffed it in the refrigerator. He had heard that cold would throw off the time of death. He needed that if he wanted to keep things concealed for as long as possible.

He wondered how long it would be before a relative found the body if he left it the apartment the man rented.

For his plan to work out like he wanted, no one could find the body ever. That meant he had to put it somewhere that no one would know what happened to it. He hated touching the thing again, but his future demanded it.

"Eric Strauss, Financial Genius." He smiled at the grandiose phrasing. He knew that was the opposite of what he should go after.

Criminals always wanted more to appease their greed. The trick was to only take as much as you could that was beneath notice. In this case, his victim was already dead. There was no next of kin to look for him. There was no business associates to ask the dead man for his vote.

As far as Eric knew, he was the only one who knew the dead man had been alive and making money.

He shouldn't have given Sade the necklace. Someone might see it and recognize it. He shook his head. He had to give her something. It would look like he was golddigging if he hadn't.

He would deal with that when it became a problem. He could pass it off as a present where he had forgotten what he did with the receipt.

That was the best he could think of at the moment. He admitted the jewelry was low on his priorities. He had to get rid of the body. Then he had to move the money from the dead man's accounts to some of his own.

He couldn't let this opportunity go to waste. It might be years of wooing Sade before he got a chance at a payday like this.

He admitted that he wasn't dating her for her looks.

Eric produced a garbage bag. He slit it open and spread it like a blanket. He did that several times until he had wide area of the kitchen floor covered. He opened the refrigerator and dumped the body out on the plastic bags. He shook his head at the stink of death that came with the corpse.

He started at the feet and bound the bags closed over the body. He used several feet of duct tape to hold everything together. He stood back and thought his handiwork looked like a weird Christmas present. He placed the bags and tape back under the sink.

He hefted the body over a shoulder. This was the tricky part. He wished he had a better way of getting rid of the body, but he couldn't think of anything that wouldn't come back to haunt him.

He lugged the dead weight from the kitchen to where the dead man kept his car. He stored the body in the trunk. He checked that he had the keys before he got behind the wheel.

If he were caught now, all of his dreams were over.

He drove south out of the city. He debated leaving the car behind, or keeping it. He didn't have a car, but he didn't want to get caught in the dead man's car either.

He doubted he could come up with an explanation for something like that.

He drove into Cutter Bay. There was a place that he could put the car where no one would find it. When he was done, he would take a bus back home. It seemed the simplest solution to everything.

The dead man had a warehouse on his list of properties. It used to belong to a shipping business. When the shipper abandoned the property, the dead man had snapped it up. Now it would house his body and car until something happened to change that.

He had already made sure everything was up to code with the city. He parked the car and put a tarp over it. He would have to come back and do something more permanent with it eventually.

He certainly couldn't keep a dead body in a car forever. Someone was bound to discover it. He would raid the man's funds, then look into getting rid of the evidence.

No one could tie him to moving the car, or the disappearance of the old man. As long as he was careful, he should be able to live the high life without anyone getting suspicious.

3

Eric Strauss made it back to his place. He had messages on his answering machine. He decided they could wait. He had to make sure that the old man's finances were secure.

He couldn't be caught with the evidence on his own machine. That's why he had bought a second one, set it up in an apartment rented under another name, and made sure there was no connection leading back to him. The apartment was directly under his. He had cut an opening to the apartment through his closet.

All he had to do was lift the trap door, and climb down a ladder.

Strauss supposed the connection would be found if there was an intensive search. That's why he planned to be as careful as possible.

He opened the trapdoor, and lowered the ladder. He climbed down into the other apartment. He had a silent alarm to the apartment upstairs. If anyone broke in while he was busy with the second machine, he could go out the door and walk up to his place. If anyone broke into the second place, he could set a filler in the space where the trapdoor was and deny he owned the place.

It wasn't perfect, but he couldn't leave his machine in some place he couldn't get to it.

He turned the machine on. He checked the accounts he held from the money he had already stolen from the dead man. He could take the rest slowly so he wouldn't arouse suspicion. He did one more check before shutting things down.

He climbed up the ladder and pulled it up behind him. He stowed the ladder in space he had set up in his closet. He covered the space with his coats.

Eventually he planned to buy the building and clear the tenants out one by one until he had the place to himself.

He had the patience to do that. There would be some suspicion when no new tenants replaced the ones that left, but when they were all gone no one would be around to be curious.

He might relocate some of them himself just to clear out the two floors he used for his business.

His machine held messages from Sade. She apologized for passing out on him. He needed to think of something that didn't sound like an excuse for ducking out on her. He wanted to keep her on the hook for as long as possible.

Then he could get rid of her when the time was right.

He didn't plan to keep her hatchet face around forever.

Maybe a push under a train. Church Hill's subway was known for things like that happening.

He composed something reasonable in his mind. Then he picked up the phone and dialed her number. He contemplated what would happen if he did decide to use the subway as a murder weapon. He would have to establish that Sade used it frequently on her own.

That would be hard since she barely left her place.

"Hello?" Her voice dug at his ears over the connection. It wasn't much better in person.

"Hello, Sade." Eric put some concern in his voice. "I just got in. Thank you for going out with me."

"I had a good time." She sounded concerned. "What I can remember of it. I am so sorry for getting drunk. I don't usually do that."

"I promise you did nothing embarrassing." Eric wondered if putting her to bed had been too much.

"Would you like to go out again?" She was used to men chasing her for her money. Eric was different.

"I have some things to do tonight, but how about tomorrow." Eric wanted some time to himself to plan now that he had the dead man hidden in another city. "I would be glad to take you to dinner somewhere."

"Could we see a movie?" Sade sounded uncertain.

"I don't see why not." He smiled. A dinner and a movie would be great. He could pretend work to drop her off early and go out on his own afterwards if he wanted to do that.

Eric knew he had made his life about his secret. He would have to exercise some control. He could never tell anyone about the dead man, and plundering his accounts. That would ruin everything for him. Anyone that threatened that had to go.

He already planned to get rid of Sade at some point. If she became a threat, he would move that point up on his timetable.

A wife with standing in high society was convenient, but not really necessary if one displayed the proper amount of money.

"Will you pick me up?" She didn't drive herself, and always used cabs when possible.

It would make her death in the subway hard to explain to anyone who knew her.

"I would be glad too." Eric gave his plans for tomorrow some thought. "We can go to the late movie. There will hardly be anyone there for the last show."

"That would be great." Sade sounded more confident. "I will be here waiting for you."

"I love you, sweetie." Eric didn't smile as he said the false assurance.

"I love you too, boojum." Sade hung up her phone.

Eric waited for several seconds before hanging up his end. He would be so glad to get rid of her when he had her money in his pocket.

Eric cooked himself a steak and fries in a pan while he thought about what he had to do. His job was ease incarnate. He would have to keep up the front until everything was secure.

His secret was his life. He couldn't spend money like water as long as he had people checking his accounts for things like that.

He could take a vacation at the end of the year. Maybe he could take Sade along. People fell off cruise ships all the time in a drunken stupor.

He just had to make sure she had signed over her belongings to him before that happened.

Her family wouldn't be happy about it, and sure to contest the will. He would have to hold on until he raided what he wanted. He could hand the rest back to satisfy them.

It would be easy to meet someone else in that circle that needed his brand of fun loving. He would have to make sure they only saw what he wanted them to see.

Eric ate quietly and cleaned up. He couldn't leave a trace where possible. Being orderly would help with that.

How many other fortunes could he add to his own before he was done?

He went over his work schedule before turning in. Tomorrow would be another busy day for him.